Second-quarter tablet shipments jumped 303.8% year-over-year and 88.9% quarter-over-quarter according to new data released by IDC on Wednesday. A total of 13.6 million units were shipped during the quarter, which drove IDC to boost its 2011 shipment forecast from 53.5 million units to 62.5 million units. Apple shipped 9.3 million iPad units during the second quarter, securing the throne of the global tablet market with a 68.3% share. The introduction of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook paired with the popularity of Apple’s iPad pushed Android’s tablet market share down from 34% to 26.8%, and IDC said the trend will continue during the third quarter when it expects Android’s tablet market share to fall to 23% before it rebounds in the fourth quarter to 25.9%. Read on for more.

“Media tablet shipments grew at a solid pace in the second quarter, led by continued strong demand for Apple products,” IDC mobile connected devices research director Tom Mainelli said. “We expect shipment totals to continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter, as additional vendors introduce more price-competitive Android products into the market and Apple works to maintain its dominance in the category.”

Apple’s dominance is expected to fade a bit later in the year as other tablets are introduced to the market. “Apple’s iOS share will continue to lead by more than 40 percentage points over Google’s Android for the remainder of the year, but we expect Apple’s share to fall closer to 50% by the end of the forecast period as manufacturers bring new tablets to market,” said Worldwide Trackers research analyst Jennifer Song.

IDC also noted that eReaders saw a 167% growth year-over-year and Amazon’s Kindle devices own a 51.7% lion’s share of the eReader market. IDC’s full press release follows below.

Media Tablet and eReader Markets Beat Second Quarter Targets, Forecast Increased for 2011, According to IDC

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., September 14, 2011 – Worldwide media tablet shipments rose by 88.9% on a sequential basis and 303.8% year over year in the second calendar quarter of 2011 (2Q11) to 13.6 million units, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker. Based on this strong performance in the second quarter, and an improved outlook for the second half of the year, IDC raised its shipment forecast for 2011 to 62.5 million units, up from a previous projection of 53.5 million units.

Worldwide media tablet shipments in the second quarter were driven by continued robust demand for Apple’s iPad 2, which saw shipments reach 9.3 million units, representing a 68.3% share of the worldwide market (up from 65.7% the previous quarter). Research in Motion entered the media tablet market in 2Q11 with its PlayBook product, grabbing a 4.9% share of the market. Apple’s strength and RIM’s entrance meant bad news for Android-based media tablets, which saw its collective share slip to 26.8%, down from 34.0% the previous quarter.

Looking forward to the second half of 2011, IDC expects Android to cede additional market share in 3Q11 (dropping to 23%) before it starts growing its share again in 4Q11 (increasing to 25.9%) and beyond. In addition to continued demand for Apple iPads, IDC expects many consumers who were on the fence about buying a media tablet to scoop up $99 TouchPads as a result of HP’s decision to end production of its tablet product. IDC expects close to a million TouchPads to ship into the channel before the end of the year. As a result, WebOS’s worldwide market share is forecast to reach 4.7% in 3Q11. However, with no clear plan to license or sell the OS to other vendors, IDC expects the WebOS market share to shrink back to zero by 1Q12.

“Media tablet shipments grew at a solid pace in the second quarter, led by continued strong demand for Apple products,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices. “We expect shipment totals to continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter, as additional vendors introduce more price-competitive Android products into the market and Apple works to maintain its dominance in the category.”

“Apple’s iOS share will continue to lead by more than 40 percentage points over Google’s Android for the remainder of the year, but we expect Apple’s share to fall closer to 50% by the end of the forecast period as manufacturers bring new tablets to market,” said Jennifer Song, research analyst, Worldwide Trackers.

Turning to eReaders, the second quarter experienced a seasonal dip, down 9% sequentially to 5.4 million units, while year-over-year growth was 167%. Amazon led the market with a 51.7% share, followed by Barnes & Noble with 21.2%. With product refreshes and following strong 2Q11 sales, IDC expects eReader shipments to grow significantly through the holiday season, reaching a total of 27.0 million units for the year, up from a previous projection of 16.2 million units.

“We expect major vendors to offer their current-generation black-and-white eReaders for less than $100 by the holidays,” Mainelli said. “We’re also expecting Amazon’s much-rumored, color LCD-based device to ship later this year. Because we expect it to run a customized version of Android that ties its use to Amazon’s content services, we expect the device to more closely resemble Barnes & Noble’s Color Nook than Apple’s iPad 2. As aresult, our current plan is to count it as an eReader, and that will also help drive shipment numbers.”

“eReaders are also gaining traction with a combination of increasing function and affordability, as well as greater device and content availability,” added Ms Song. “The strong first half performance and an improved view of eReader positioning helped boost our outlook for shipment volume.”

Media Tablet and eReader Markets Beat Second Quarter Targets, Forecast Increased for 2011, According to IDC

Say it ain’t so!! Even with them counting nook colors and kindles as tablets android still slid? My life is over. I give up. Apple, you win.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6HpRLyzMY Walter Sobchak

Man Papi really got under your skin, huh?

Anonymous

I thought Android tablets were supposed to mirror the growth curve of Android phones. What happened there?

Anonymous

You thought wrong, dumb ass.

Anonymous

ZOMG Apple is doomed!!1! /s

Rudy

Wait a minute, I just read an article 5 minutes ago stating that the Playbook is a non-factor…

Anonymous

I just got a $
830 iPad2 for only $ 105.39 and my mom got a $ 1500 HD TV for only $ 253.94,
they are both coming with FedEx tomorrow. I would be an idiot to ever pay full
retail prices at places like Walmart or Bestbuy. I sold a 39″ HD TV to my
boss for $ 600 that I only paid $ 80.23 for. I use B e t a O f f e r . c
o m

The Amazon tablet is going to ‘fork’ both Android and consumers at once. Talk about a platform with built-in fragmentation and you’re talking Android. What a joke. Android is totally ‘forked up’. No wonder anyone is buying Android tablets except Droidtards.

Anonymous

YAHTZEEEEEE!!!!! first.

Steve Jenkins

Once you take off your pedobear costume, your just a sad little doucher in his pre-pubescent gf’s basement waiting for someone to +1 you…

Anonymous

Before people go crazy over “market share”…

All talk of “market share” in this article is related to devices shipped Q2, not actual sales or total market share of devices already purchased.

So while Android and other OS’s are pumping out more devices, Apple still holds a healthy amount of market share of actual devices owned beforehand and purchased during Q2.

Estimates that I’ve seen for the iPad are in the 85-95% range of actual tablets purchased and being played with overall.

Hooray

Well, duh. HP’s Touchpad firesale slowed Android tablet adoption. After all, why buy a $400 – $600 tablet when you can get one for $99?

On a second note, that guy in the picture at the beginning of this post exemplifies the douche that is the Apple customer.

Anonymous

a douche because he proudly spent his own money on two products that he likes, with one most likely heading its way to eBay on launch day, selling for $1100 because they were not available outside the U.S. for the first few weeks & of course the shortage of devices driving up the after market price. He basically got his iPad free with profit, yet he is a douche? I did the same thing with the Xbox 360, PS 3, Wii, Wii Balance board, the Kinect and the iPhone 4. It is just being a good capitalist.

Bringit

There is no tablet market, only an iPad market. It’s not even close.

Anonymous

i totally agree,, apple just has such a head start,, no one will catch up in the short run,,

Anonymous

Why even report on “units shipped”? It’s a nearly meaningless number.

VirginMerry

Only 68.3% – sorry – I don’t believe it – has to be close to 85% – In all my traveling, I’ve seen about two Galazy Pads – if Kindle is a Pad then OK – but it’s a reader. Everyone has iPads.

Anonymous

Read my post a few up.

Anonymous

The tablet market is dominated by apple simply because of two factors,, one is apps,,, the second is hardware…. i own an iPad 2,, and i did for a minute try a xoom,, i did like the zooms layout,, it was a decent user interface,, but slow clunky,, and there were NO apps for it,,, great for internet,, and email,,, but thats about it,, ,now my iPad,, well iMessage,, i work,, iMovie, garageband,, i mean just to name a few really powerful programs developed by apple,,,,,, google are you taking notes?>

Anonymous

Didn’t Apple used to have like 99% of the Tablet market?

Anonymous

They still do. Unless your view of the market is what is sitting in the back room of the stores.

http://twitter.com/Synergi Synergi

LOL..

I think that is all going to change when Amazon releases their tablet. I think they will steal the lion share of tablets sold among Android makers and kick Google off their own, open platform. Sounds fun. :)

I think Amazon is about to prove a closed system might prove more popular, even on Android.. only time will tell.

$360AShareAgainPissesMeOff>:-{

Apple’s iPad is the tablet market. A non-Apple tablet isn’t even worth mentioning, except in jest.

http://www.TheGuruReview.net TGR

The market is ripe for Windows 8. MS needs to incorporate some of the tablet email functions with WP7 as RIM did just not the issues.

Anonymous

Except that it won’t be out for a year+. Just like WP7, they are missing the best time to strike. But in the end they could end up making a come back in the market.

$360AShareAgainPissesMeOff>:-{

I thought all the tech geniuses said that the crippled, useless and overpriced iPad would be crushed by the tens of millions of $250 ‘open source’ Android tablets that were far more powerful and useful. After all, the Android tablets would have USB ports, expandable memory, run Adobe Flash and offer apps that weren’t controlled by the Apple dictators. So far, it looks as though the tech geniuses were completely wrong because they don’t know anything about what average non-tech consumers want in a product. A major problem with tech-heads’ reasoning is that they equate hardware specs with consumer product usability. Impressive hardware specs are not even close to what most consumers are looking for because they hardly understand that mumbo-jumbo.

Absolutely Certain

Come on Old Yeller. It’s just a short walk to the back of the Woodshed and soon you’ll be running in doggy heaven.

http://twitter.com/Aleis Jayrock

android phones 550k a day….13mil collective tablets sold in a quarter…thats cute :)

“A total of 13.6 million units were shipped during the quarter, which drove IDC to boost its 2011 shipment forecast from 53.5 million units to 62.5 million units. Apple shipped 9.3 million iPad units during the second quart…..”